Gillian plays slow guitar, acoustic,
in a minor key, jewish, sad,
while I dream with a hammer in my hand.
Fighting with the hatchet man
who forked my tongue,
on a highway of Memphis moonlight,
kicking cinders and rattling bones,
whispering little love songs in the ditch shadows,
I dream the highway leads me back to you.
Which lover are you ?
Reflecting the knave of diamonds
in some timeless saloon window,
backed in a corner,
disguised by flickers of twilight,
in the caste of the cool cathode ray, blue and pooled,
gasping on whiskey soaked breath, no more or less.
The viper in my head,
forgotten lovers in nondescript beds,
a moon of porcelain, blistered by morning's slow friction.
Trembling on the verge of tears,
in a roadside midnight diner,
where the waitress spills her lonely fears.
Dreaming of a silver vision,
and a sacred band of finger gold,
as the pendulum swings, metronomic,
the coffee grows cold,
sustained through the unforgiving winter.
I thought I saw a vision of Lazarus,
stepping into the cone of swinging light.
With winding ribbons all fluttering,
mouthing the words of Jesus, muttering,
and in the mayhem, the lack of God,
and the breathy words of little love songs.
Darling...remember...
when you come to me...
and what we are supposed to be...
now and even later...
time is our mutual traitor...
lacking revelation.
Early in the morning, after all the night,
gassing up the car,
every day is getting straighter...
into the rising sun,
cruising with accelerator.
One day I'll go back, see Kelly again,
the emotional drain,
the separation of the pain,
no imitators,
I take the blame,
I was, and still am, the instigator.
There is no memory, not lucid anyway,
not now, not any day,
just quicksilver girls who melt away,
like the road miles we devour in silence.
Like the sweet banjo music from the mountains,
I know you are waiting for me,
impatiently,
unable to resist my dream words.
Sing a little love song,
sing one for me,
as you slowly tumble to sleep.
Straight into clasping arms,
to hold and to keep.
There is no price to pay, not today,
everything is free now,
that's what you used to say,
together we figured it out,
before,
rolling on the floor,
everything we ever did and said
we are giving it all away now.
Every day I wake up singing little love songs,
and they make me cry,
I dream of the highway back to you.
Love you till I die.